Welcome to this year’s edition of Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, where we will break down each of the 23 categories, analyze the films, and make some guesses at their awards prospects.
Best Documentary Feature
The nominees are:
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupol
It would be wrong not to acknowledge the tragic death of Russian opposition party leader Alexei Navalny, the subject of last year’s Documentary Feature winner. Director Daniel Rohrer’s Navalny is a powerful chronicle of the bravery required to stand up to an oppressive regime. The film digs deep into the first attempt on Navalny’s life carried out by the Russian government. For a time, he and his family flee the country, but he is resolute. He will return and attempt to lead his countrymen out of the darkness of the Putin regime.
At many points, the film played like a eulogy for its then-living subject. When Navalny is arrested at the airport upon landing in Russia and imprisoned, we know this may be the last time we see him alive. He knew it, too, which is why he included a direct address to the camera with a message in the event of his death. You have probably seen it go viral online over the past couple weeks.
He said: “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power to not give up.” At their best, the Academy Awards serve as a platform for these kinds of necessary messages. It’s up to us to listen and take action.
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The story at the heart of Christopher Sharp’s and Moses Bwayo’s Bobi Wine shares much in common with that of Navalny. The playbook of dictatorships does not change much from country to country. The film tells of popular Ugandan singer Bobi Wine, who runs for president in an attempt to oust the ruling dictator Yoweri Museveni.
His campaign is beset by threats of terror and harassment at the hands of the government, and finally, Wine is arrested on obviously bogus charges. Those who saw Navalny will recognize this series of events. Despite all of this and despite the dangers to his family and himself, Wine never stops trying to spread his message of unity and love. The film offers a fascinating insight into the heart of a man willing to put his country before himself and democracy before all else.
The Eternal Memory
Few documentarians are doing it like Chilean director Maite Alberdi right now. Her 2020 Documentary Feature nominee The Mole Agent was a fascinating, funny, and innovative look at aging and ways we treat the aged. For The Eternal Memory, she carries over the theme of aging but tackles a much more pointed subject to even greater emotional effect.
Augusto Góngora was among Chile’s most prominent journalists and an outspoken critic of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Almost a decade ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Since then, his wife of 23 years, Paulina Urrutia, has rarely left his side. The Eternal Memory is a love story that pulls no punches in portraying the horror of accelerated cognitive decline, but Alberdi never forgets the heart and humanity of her subjects. This is a gorgeous tribute to the power of love and a poignant study of what happens when that love begins to slip through your fingers.
Four Daughters
Two of the four daughters referenced by the title are no longer with the family at the center of this story. We will not really meet them until later. For much of this film’s runtime, the part of the daughters will be played by a pair of lookalike actresses. They will participate in reenactments with the two remaining daughters and the matriarch of this family. These reenactments will often be painful reimaginings of some of the worst moments of these women’s lives. Sometimes, it will be too much to bear.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania delivers one of the most unique and engaging documentaries of recent times, presenting the story of two young women who leave their family to join the Islamic State and the wreckage of the lives they leave behind. Ben Hania, a previous nominee for Best International Feature for The Man Who Sold His Skin, has a remarkable facility for getting her subjects to confront their innermost thoughts as though the camera isn’t even there. By the end, we feel that we have been nothing more than a fly on the wall to one of the strangest and saddest domestic dramas ever.
To Kill a Tiger
This is a movie about the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl and a culture that wants to make it her problem. Why was she out unsupervised? Why was she at the party in the first place? Couldn’t she just marry one of the attackers to keep the peace? The assault happened in a village in rural India, where the cultural norm is to handle these things within the community, which generally means forgive and forget. Boys will be boys. Or, men will be men. Whatever, it’s her fault.
It would be tempting to look at this as a case of a backward culture that needs to get with the times and join us in the 21st century. But, did anything I described sound very different from: Well, what was she wearing? It’s not different, and it’s a global problem, in this instance exacerbated by the cultural mores. The girl’s father, Ranjit, refuses to accept that things must be this way, and he decides to put his livelihood and the lives of his family on the line to fight for justice. It is an arduous, frustrating journey, and director Nisha Pahuja’s camera captures every remarkable moment.
20 Days in Mariupol
This is not just the most important documentary of the year but one of the most important documentaries ever made. The footage gathered and presented here by Associated Press reporter Mstyslav Chernov and the PBS Frontline team represents the definitive account of the early days of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The images contained within the film are a brutal, disturbing, and honest account of one city’s calculated destruction at the hands of an attacking force.
Much of what we know of what happened in Mariupol comes from the footage captured by Chernov and team, who were among the last reporters with boots on the ground as Russian forces besieged the city. Occasionally, the film cuts to the news reports made possible by the very images we have seen the filmmakers gather. The film makes it clear that this war is a crime against humanity. Women and children are not only dying. They are being killed. Willfully and wantonly by a war criminal. If not for the images captured here in full color, it would be difficult to believe such inhumanity could be taking place. But it is, and these images can neither be forgotten nor ignored.
Editor’s note: Hollywood has largely proven itself hypocritical on and ill-equipped to deal with the genocide currently underway in Gaza. If there is any justice, next year, we will get equally compelling documentaries about what is going on in the Middle East right now, but in Hollywood, justice is often just for the movies.
The final analysis
Any of these films would be a handsome winner, but the firsthand power of 20 Days in Mariupol, combined with its ongoing political relevance, will be virtually impossible to overlook for voters. If you’re looking for potential spoilers, Bobi Wine has the power of Disney behind it and To Kill a Tiger can boast star executive producers Mindy Kaling and Dev Patel. In a more open year, these might be compelling factors, but nothing is more compelling than Chernov’s film.
Will win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Should win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Should have been here: American Symphony
A note about my favorite snub: Director Matthew Heineman is one of the finest documentary filmmakers working today. From Cartel Land and City of Ghosts to The First Wave and Retrograde, he has been unafraid to put himself on the frontlines of some of the most important fights in the world today. For American Symphony, he teamed with Netflix to bring to the screen the story of one of our most interesting contemporary musicians and his wife’s battle with cancer. It’s a tender, heartfelt project that dives as deep into the artistic and creative process as any film to come before it. Heineman will absolutely win one of these things someday.
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